


What We Do (After The End Of The World)

by BanrionCeallach



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, One-Shots, Sort Of, drabbles really, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2020-07-30 03:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20090539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BanrionCeallach/pseuds/BanrionCeallach
Summary: Aziraphale & Crowley after the end.





	1. After the End: Aziraphale

After the Apocalypse is cancelled, Crowley starts to notice that certain people are finding their way to A Z Fell & Co.

The person with chronic pain who wandered in after accidentally leaving their medication at home is the first

They’re followed a couple of weeks later by an LGBTQ teenager who’s been made homeless by their intolerant parents, taking shelter from a storm.

After that comes a young woman who rushed in the door one day to try and lose an abusive ex who was following her down the street. (Crowley takes particular pleasure in slithering past the man’s ankles when he storms into the bookshop. The scream was like quality music.)

And there are more. Never too many in quick succession. But a constant drip of people who’ve been trapped in terrible situations by the toxic aspects of earth’s cultures. 

And Crowley, pondering one day on why Aziraphale is now finding people who need him without even having to leave his beloved bookshop, realises something.

For centuries, Aziraphale has needed to hide what he is. Watch the frivolous miracles, only carry out blessings deemed suitable by heaven, stay small, stay out of sight. Even the Arrangement contributed to it. Meet clandestinely, watch what you say, be careful, say nothing, hide.

But it’s different now that they’re on their own side. All of the impulses that Aziraphale squashed down in order to placate a cold and sterile heaven are finding a way out. Without realising it, the Guardian of the Eastern Gate is broadcasting a signal of love, acceptance and protection across London. And those most in need are drawn to it unconsciously. 

The Principality Aziraphale is finally free to fulfill his purpose.


	2. After the End: Crowley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does Crowley fill his time?

Crowley doesn’t much go in for the actually interacting with the people who find a way to AZ Fell & Co (excepting handing out useful medication to the person with chronic pain because he Knows that type of pain personally). He leaves the love and acceptance and comforting to Aziraphale. That’s the angel’s thing after all. 

Crowley is tough and cool and he has Standards. Just because they’re on their own side now doesn’t mean he’s not a demon anymore. He’s a denizen of Hell, one of the Fallen (never mind that he really didn’t intend falling) and he is Not Soft. Also gluing pennies to the footpath is totally nefarious demonic activity. Shut up.

And yet … somehow the abusive ex accidentally sends a harassing text (and the accompanying unsolicited dick pic) to everyone on his contacts list _but_ his victim. His boss is not amused. He loses his job in short order. His female colleagues have an impromptu party to celebrate.

Somehow the intolerant parents of the homeless LGBTQ teenager have non-stop breakdowns of all their household appliances. Washing machine, dishwasher, electric shower, even the fusebox malfunctions. They have to replace everything, only for the replacements to last a week before breaking, leaking and generally wrecking the house all over again.

Somehow bullies and abusers of those who find their way to the bookshop suddenly have an almost demonic run of bad luck.

Aziraphale hears about it when people occasionally make a second visit to tell him how they’re getting on. He raises an eyebrow at Crowley, who shrugs.

“Well, I’ve got to find some way to keep busy now that we’re retired angel, haven’t I?” he murmurs.

Aziraphale, listening to his teenage visitor tell him how their parents bathroom shower _exploded_, raises his other eyebrow.

Crowley grins a _very_ self-satisfied grin.


	3. Robin

Robin Cooper let out a quiet but heartfelt whine. This day had started badly with an unscheduled wake up at 4 am and only proceeded to get worse from there. They’d had to go into London to meet a client who had only cancelled ten minutes before they were due to meet. Now they were stumbling around Soho desperately looking for any place they might be able to take the weight off their feet. Preferably without having to spend anymore of their extremely limited supply of cash. Which meant a café or shop wasn’t really an option.

As Robin glanced around desperately, their gaze landed on a sign that proclaimed: A Z Fell & Co, Established 1801. A bookshop. Bookshops had seats sometimes didn’t they? Waterstones definitely did. And unlike cafes and shops they might be allowed to just sit for a few minutes without buying anything. Robin just needed a few minutes. A few minutes rest and they’d be fine.

_ Lies, _said a thought that sounded uncomfortably like their mother._ You want to get home **right now** but you underestimated today’s workload and ran out of energy hours early. Not mention how careless it was of you. Your legs ache so much and you’re so tired. This is what happens when you don’t plan ahead. Getting home is going to use up even more energy that you don’t have. The chances of you having to call in sick tomorrow have just skyrocketed. That’ll be the third time this month. Your boss is Not going to be happy._

Just as they were hesitating outside the door a sudden heavy shower of rain began. So Robin wearily pushed open the heavy door and hobbled in.

They were immediately confronted with the bizarre sight of a blond man dressed as an Edwardian gentleman arguing with a skinny red-headed guy who was wearing sunglasses and as much black as humanly possible.

_Ho-ly shit, _Robin’s brain said, momentarily distracted from exhaustion,_ those are some** tight **pants._

Alerted by the sound of the door opening, the blond man turned towards them. They swallowed nervously. He did Not Look Pleased at the interruption. “We’re closed,” he said primly, nodding towards the door. Mr Tight Pants frowned at them from behind his sunglasses.

Robin almost cried with frustration and exhaustion. They just wanted to sit for a minute. Just one minute. They could even see a fancy sofa in the background. It looked so comfortable. Fancy furniture is not usually all that comfortable, but this one seemed like it would be. Frankly they’d take an overturned box at this point.

But you can’t just burst into tears at complete strangers. So, experiencing utter misery, Robin mumbled embarrassed apologies and turned around. They started to slowly make their way towards the door. 

They had only gone a few steps when the Edwardian-cosplay guy spoke again, his voice much less sharp. “My dear, do you need to sit down?”

Robin froze.

_If I turn around will he be talking to me (**oh please, oh please)** or tight pants dude? Am I about to misinterpret something and embarrass myself horribly?_

They hesitated and then, thinking _fuck it this day can’t get any worse_, risked turning their head a fraction. Tight-pants-and-sunglasses was still frowning. But it seemed more like a thoughtful frown than an aggressive one.

And oh _thank fuck_, the guy who looks like he stepped out of period drama was walking towards them with a sympathetic look on his face and gesturing towards the sofa. 

Robin was afraid they really were about to cry at this point, so they just nodded emphatically instead of speaking and moved towards the sofa. The moment they got the weight off their feet the relief was stupendous. Everything still hurt, but good god was the sofa miraculously comfortable. 

“I’m closing up,” Edwardian guy said after introducing himself as the proprietor Mr. Fell, “so I’m afraid I can’t sell you anything, but you’re welcome to sit for a while.”

He seemed curiously overly pleased when they admit that they didn’t actually intend to buy anything.

“I just needed to sit,” Robin assured him. “I meant to be home much earlier but things just happened and-” 

They trailed off, shrugging helplessly.

“I completely understand, my dear,” said Mr Fell, now in a considerably better mood than when he’d first spoken.

Robin doubted that, just a bit.

Then the skinny sunglasses man, who’d disappeared through a door in the back while Mr Fell was leading them to the sofa, reappeared. He was now carrying something but they didn’t immediately notice what it was because they were suddenly very distracted by the way he walked.

It _looked_ like the ridiculous peacock swagger of a man who has so much self-confidence that it’s practically sloshing out his ears.

Unless you know what you’re looking for. And they did. They mentally winced._ Ohh. His joints must be a **mess.**_

He nodded to Robin, one chronic pain sufferer to another. “Taken a painkiller for it yet?” he asked.

They shook their head. They’d forgotten to put their pills in their bag this morning which had made the whole day infinitely worse.

Sunglasses man handed them the package he’d been carrying which turns out to be a paper bag containing a box of very good painkillers and a bottle of water. 

“I know how it is,” he said by way of explanation, colouring slightly when they looked at him in surprise. “Can spot one of us a mile off.” 

As Robin downed the pill, sunglasses man glared at Mr Fell, who was now smiling gently at him.

“Not one word, Angel,” he grumbled. “I mean it. I’m passing out controlled drugs. This is very evil of me.”

“Of course it is my dear,” said Mr Fell, still smiling. “Very devious. Shockingly evil.”

Robin sighed with relief at the sheer comfortableness of the sofa and closed their eyes for a few minutes while Mr Fell wandered around the bookstore and sunglasses man followed after him, still grumbling quietly.

When they woke up a few hours later, lying comfortably on the sofa with a tartan blanket stretched over them, there was a taxi waiting to take them home. Mr Fell waved them off cheerily and his partner favoured them with a nod. 

“Drop in again if you get stuck around here,” the redheaded man murmured as he helped them into the cab. “He’ll be glad to see you now he knows you don’t want to buy any of his books.”


	4. Warlock

It’s about three years after the world didn’t end that Crowley saunters into AZ Fell & Co intending to take Aziraphale to their usual lunch at the Ritz, and then stops dead at the sight in front of him.

Aziraphale is standing in the middle of the bookshop with a sobbing teenager crying into his shoulder. This is not all that uncommon these days. The bookshop has gained (or perhaps regained) a reputation as place of safety. What shocks Crowley into stillness is the sight of the tear-stained teenage face that turns towards him.

“W-Warlock?” he stammers, staring at the one person he’d never expected to see again.

They’d agreed after the apocalypse, he and Aziraphale, that Warlock Dowling had had enough trouble brought into his life by their respective sides. Both of them had been responsible for what was, on reflection, an extremely weird upbringing for an ordinary child who was not in fact the Great Adversary. So they had checked up on him one last time on his twelfth birthday and then left him definitively alone.

“Nanny!”

And then Crowley has his arms full of sobbing human teenager. He hugs back reflexively and looks over Warlock’s shoulder at Aziraphale. “What’s going on, Angel?” he mouths silently.

Aziraphale coughs. “Dearest,” he says a trifle awkwardly, “Warlock has had to leave home for a while.”

Crowley stiffens, frowning. “What? Why?” he says suspiciously. “What’s been going on?”

Warlock is what, fourteen now? Crowley is reasonably sure that is too young to be completely independent.

Warlock mutters something incoherent into Crowley’s chest and a fresh round of sobbing starts, so Crowley delays his questions for a minute and opts instead to rub gentle circles on Warlock’s back. “There now dearie,” he says, his accent changing almost instinctively. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

This prompts more sobs from the half-hysterical teenager and Crowley gives Aziraphale another Look. “What,” he mouths again, “Is. Going. On?”

“Homophobic father,” Aziraphale mouths back.

Crowley’s gaze swings from Aziraphale down to the crying Warlock and then back to Aziraphale, who nods solemnly to indicate that yes, he just said what Crowley thinks he said.

Crowley tightens his hug on Warlock. “I’m going to kill him,” he hisses at Aziraphale.

The angel winces. “I’m very much in sympathy with your sentiments my dear, but I don’t think that’s the best use of our time right now.”

Crowley opens his mouth to demand what could possibly be a better use of their time when Warlock pulls out of the hug, steps back slightly, wipes his eyes and looks up at him.

“Sorry for making a mess of your shirt, Nanny,” he croaks. “I’ve missed you.”

_Oh_, Crowley thinks. _Right._

He smiles down at the boy and reaches out a hand to brush back Warlock’s long hair. “Missed you too, dearie. Now, you come up the kitchen for a cup of tea and tell me who’s been upsetting my little beast.”

“It’s Dad,” Warlock manages to say before he has to wipe away a fresh fall of tears. “Mum’s away in America. He said he was going to send me away. To be fixed. Because me and John were-”

Warlock doesn’t finish his disjointed explanation, but Crowley can fill in the blanks. He puts an arm around Warlocks shoulder and leads him to the stairs that go up to the flat above the bookshop. At the foot of the stairs he turns and looks over his shoulder at Aziraphale. “I’ve got this, angel,” he says. “Why don’t you go have a word with someone.”

Aziraphale smiles. That is to say, the corners of his mouth turn up and he shows his teeth. “Of course my dear, I’d be delighted to.”

***

Years later political commentators will do whole documentaries on how quickly and explosively Thaddeus Dowling’s career (along with his marriage) collapsed. It was astonishing, they will say. Educational too. A clear example to future politicians on What Not To Do. Thaddeus will maintain until the day he dies that he was framed and sabotaged by person or persons unknown. Nobody will ever believe him.

The few times his ex-wife and son are interviewed, they deny all knowledge of foul play.

“You know,” Harriet Dowling says in one of her rare interviews, “I’m not an overly religious woman. But sometimes it seemed to me back then that Tad suffered almost divine retribution.” Her son, who is standing next to her, squeezes her shoulder.

“I prefer not to think of the past,” Harriet continues. “There are much more pleasant things to think about now. I’ve got Warlock and John and my grandchildren. I couldn’t be happier.”

In the background a thin redheaded woman chases two gleefully screaming toddlers across the garden, while Warlock Dowling smiles at the sight. Harriet turns slightly from the camera to look at her grandchildren. “Good old Nanny Ashtoreth,” she says fondly. “I don’t know what I’d have done without her and her husband Francis. I wasn’t in a good place when I divorced Tad and their support was invaluable. Heaven-sent almost.”

“Almost,” Warlock Dowling agrees with a smile.


End file.
